Nadia’s blog

My Country
by Dorothea McKellar
a poem about Australia

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies -
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of rugged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!

The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops,
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die –
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land –
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand –
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

I remember learning this poem in primary school. I put it on the blog, because I keep thinking of it when we talk about the Australian environment and ethos. However, I was first reminded of it by Jo Smith, on whom I did one of my portraits for Spot the difference 2, though I don’t think she would agree with McKellar’s sentiments on how much she loves the Australian landscape.

To take a slight tangent, the end of the poem reminds me of ‘Saltwater’ by Julian Lennon (“what will I think of me the day that I die?”). I think that like designers and artists, poets and songwriters are able to encapsulate the feelings of individuals and society. Do you think that designers are visual poets? Or that designs are visual songs?